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Committee finds one nominee `unfit'

Judicial Yuan Vice President Cheng Chung-mo (城仲模) was the only candidate found to be an inappropriate nominee to the Council of Grand Justices by a civil watchdog group's assessment released yesterday.

"A 15-member committee comprised of legal experts determined that Cheng was incompetent to be a grand justice because of a discrepancy found between his real implementation of human rights issues and the ideal that he claimed to have honored at all times," said Ku Chung-hwa (顧忠華), executive member of the Taipei Society, who hosted a news conference in Taipei yesterday.

The Association Monitoring the Nomination of Grand Justices, comprised of Ku's society, the Judicial Reform Foundation, the Taiwan Association for Human Rights and several bar associations, conducted a three-month assessment of the 15 nominees selected by President Chen Shui-bian in May.

The assessments were conducted through interviews with over 200 jurists, legal professors and lawyers, and was necessary to help lawmakers better review the nominations and finalize a confirmation vote by October.

A 15-member committee convened by the monitoring association to finalize the process confirmed Cheng's disqualification.

Over two-thirds of the committee vetoed his nomination after extensive discussion during the evaluation process.

Ku explained that Cheng was criticized for his handling of three capital punishment cases while he served as minister of justice.

The most controversial case involved a prisoner surnamed Chao, who was allegedly executed without the required procedures being followed, Ku said.

Chao was executed on Oct. 20, 1998, one day before his lawyer received the court's verdict, a Control Yuan investigation discovered.

The Control Yuan ruled the execution was a mistake.

The Ministry of Justice was also reprimanded for two other two capital-punishment cases during Cheng's tenure.

"The Control Yuan's verdicts revealed that the grand justice nominee should be challenged for his alleged prioritizing of human rights," Ku said.

He said the Control Yuan verdicts clearly stated that the demand of an ultimate approval by the minister of justice for carrying out the death penalty was legally formulated according to the country's respect for individuals' lives.

"Cheng's misconduct raised our concerns about his competency, since the top priority of grand justices is to protect human rights and the lives of individual citizens," said Wei Chian-feng (魏千峰), chairman of the Taiwan Association for Human Rights.

"It is unbelievable that a person like Cheng could make such mistakes since he used to do research into the abolishment of the death penalty and even wrote his master's degree dissertation on the subject," Wu said.

Ku said the assessment would be sent to each lawmaker and hopefully would lend a hand in the confirmation of the nominees.
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